Pattern Recognition

An excerpt from Shemitta: For the Land Is Mine, by Mark Edward Vande Pol

It starts in the Beginning with Bereshit:

Gen 1:28

Every living thing multiplies; humans are accountable to
increase the productivity of every living system

Gen 2:5-7

Humans cause disturbance to bring forth plant life.

Gen 2:15

Our purpose is to dress and keep the entire Garden.

Gen 3:17-18

Cursed is the ground for our sake; thistles, thorns,
and hard labor are for disobedience.

Gen 4:11-12

Agro-urban conquest of pastoral peoples was both destructive
to soil fertility & perilous to the resulting agro-industrial nations.

With statutes by which to prosper in the land of Israel:

Lev 23:42-43

Everyone is to muster every year in Jerusalem to live together
in portable shelter for a week.

Ex 23:10-11
& Lev 25:5-6

Every seventh year, release and abandon producing lands
and head for the hills.

Lev 26:10

Consume the prior triple portion that year, restock with part of
the new triple portion. Always keep a year’s worth of food stored
in the field and another at home.

Lev 25:20-2

Keep two years worth of food, always eat the old store.

Lev 25:6-7

Supplement stores by foraging for fresh produce.

Lev 25:10-13

Every fifty years, go home and live off your land.

Lev 25:23

Keep the land in the family; it belongs to Him.

Lev 25:24-28

You can not sell accountability for land; keep working it.

Lev 25:31

Rural communities are inseparable from the land.

Lev 25:36-37

Make loans to your brethren but charge no interest.

Deut 15:1-11
31:11, Ex 21:2

On the year of release, forgive all debts, terminate all
labor contracts, and hear these instructions on Sukkot.

Taken together, this pattern readily forms our hypothesis:

The Sabbath for the Land, wildland foraging, permanent title,
debt-forgiveness, termed labor contracts, and Sukkot, are not
just to fallow fields, honor the tribes of Israel, help the poor,
and remember living in tents. Their purpose is to ensure a hardy,
prosperous, free, and independent people, tending the land and
transmitting that knowledge from generation to generation, truly
a light to the nations.